Happy End of the World (Demon-Hearted Book 3) Read online

  Kubo smirked. “In case you haven't been paying attention, I'm not much for cozy office jobs. Amundsen is going to be traveling the world to sit in on long meetings with other senior leaders. Bores the hell out of me just thinking about it. I'd rather be on the ground, getting things done.” Jabbing me in the chest with a finger, he added, “And you should count your lucky stars, too. If I'd taken some other job, Lord knows who they'd have put in charge of you. You should be thankful you're still taking your orders from me, Lucy.”

  He had a point there. Better to deal with Kubo than some prick like Arson as a supervisor.

  We stepped out of the elevator and started down the hall. Kubo waved us into a conference room, continuing on by himself. “I'm going to grab a few books. You two sit tight in there. I'll be right back.”

  I ambled into the room and collapsed into one of the chairs, sinking into the recesses of my coat. Germaine sped across the table and approached the television in the corner, using one of his spidery digits to switch it on. “This thing get Netflix?” he asked. “I was hoping to catch up on my shows, since we've got a little downtime.”

  On the screen, I caught the local news's evening broadcast. They were discussing a new viral video, and had paused upon a single frame, the anchors joking with one another. “I don't really see it, do you?” asked one.

  An anchor in a powder blue suit shook his head. “Me neither, but in a video taken in downtown Detroit, numerous viewers report seeing what they believe to be a large creature, perhaps an extraterrestrial.” Looking into the camera with a winning smile, he motioned to the viewer. “Decide for yourself.”

  The video was grainy, and the only sound that could be heard aside from the breeze was the voice of the person doing the recording, a young guy who kept on going, “Holy crap, man! That's an E-T or somethin', aint it?” Despite the shitty quality, I glimpsed in that twenty-second recording the silhouette of something I recognized. Sailing through the air far above the skyline of downtown Detroit, bobbing amidst the clouds, was the enormous creature that'd laid waste to my car not an hour ago.

  Kubo entered the room, closing the door behind him and struggling to keep hold of the teetering stack of books in his hands.

  “Chief,” I said as he set them down on the table. “I think you're going to want to see this.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  12

  Kubo paced around the conference room, phone in hand. “I'm telling you, I want three choppers out there patrolling the city. If you see this thing, I want you to light it up. Blow it out of the sky. Got it? That's an order.” He was giving his marching orders, preparing to scour the city for the creature who'd turned up in the evening news. Now that the eyes of the world were focused on the thing, swift action was needed. After seeking approval from his bosses, Kubo had started making phone calls, scrambling Black Hawks and hoping beyond all hope that the Veiled Order would be able to keep this monstrosity contained. “The last thing I want,” he said as he hung up, “is for the entire city to watch our guys dogfighting with this sumbitch.”

  In the meantime, he'd asked me to call Joe in to HQ, and I'd fired off a text to him. He'd replied, saying he'd be over in thirty minutes.

  When all of that was over with, we were set to start diving into the books that Kubo had collected, except we didn't get a chance to. The door to the conference room opened and a most unwelcome visitor joined us.

  “How goes it, Kubo?” asked Nicholaus Arson from the doorway. He was wearing his sunglasses on his head like a soccer mom, his black suit coated in fine snow. His eyes scanned the room, and he glossed over Germaine with a grimace before taking me in his sights. “I expect the men under your command understand the severity of this situation?”

  Kubo nodded. “I've got choppers combing the air for this thing, and Lucy and I were just going to do a bit of research, see if we can't figure out exactly what it is. I have a contractor coming in, Malcolm Sterling, who should be able to help us track the beast.”

  “Very good.” Arson took a few steps into the room. “And what do you know about it so far? Will the helicopters be a match for it?”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” I interjected. Standing up, I continued. “That thing attacked me, gave me a run for my money. Those choppers won't--”

  Arson put up one of his hands, shooting me an icy glare. “I wasn't asking you. You will speak when spoken to. Understood, demon?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Hey, I'm not sure why it is you're being so harsh, but I have actual information about this thing. It attacked me. You don't have to be a dick. I'm trying to help.”

  To this, Arson gave a toss of his shoulders. “I'm not sure if you misheard me just now, but I asked you to keep your mouth shut. An inability to follow basic orders like that one makes me wonder whether you're truly a good fit for our organization.” A smile crept onto his lips.

  “Give the kid a break,” said Germaine.

  “A break? No, I think not. He's been given far too many allowances already. Why, wasn't he the one who employed risky tactics in the hunt for Agamemnon, leading to the deaths of countless men? I seem to remember hearing about him losing control after the defeat of Mater Agatha as well. Whenever the demon tries to help, he only manages to thwart our efforts. He's a liability, and should probably sit this mission out, don't you think, Kubo?”

  The Chief shifted uncomfortably. “I have faith in Lucian's abilities. He's an asset here.”

  Though unconvinced, Arson chuckled. “I'll leave it to your judgement. In the long-term however, I plan to prune the dead-weight in this organization, and I have a suspicion that the Demon-Heart won't pass muster.”

  Fighting the urge to flip him off, I plopped back down into my seat and shut up. I could have said a million smart-assed things, but what I really wanted then was to punch him in the head. I decided to throw in the towel before I gave in to the urge.

  “Well anyhow, he's right,” offered Kubo. “I'm not sure that the choppers will be able to kill it. They may be an effective deterrent, but until our experts get here, we won't know exactly what it is we're dealing with. I'll keep you updated on the situation as we learn more.”

  “See that you do,” replied Arson, closing the door softly behind him. Before leaving the room, he stopped to give me a final, dirty look.

  It was Germaine who spoke up next, taking the words out of my mouth. “Well, ain't he a delight?”

  Kubo said nothing more on the matter, instead turning his attention to the stack of books on the table. “Lucy, you and Germaine are welcome to stay here tonight, if you want to. After what happened, you'll probably be safer here than you would be at home.”

  “We'll see,” I replied. “Right now what I want is some fresh air.” I stood up and marched out of the conference room, letting the door slam behind me. Germaine tried to follow, but gave up the chase as I started down the hall. My heart was pounding. I rounded the corner and went up one floor on the elevator, wondering if I wouldn't encounter Arson inside.

  The elevator was empty. Good thing, too. There was no telling what I might've done to him if we'd met in an enclosed space.

  The elevator spit me out into the lobby, and I passed through the main doors and into the parking lot. I kept on going until I'd made it to the tall black gates outside, my breath steaming out in great clouds before me.

  Yeah, I'd definitely made mistakes in my time with the Veiled Order. I'd be the last person to deny it. Nonetheless, my efforts at becoming more responsible had gone unrecognized. I mean, they'd shipped me off to Tibet for three months. What more did they want from me? What more could I do to prove my dedication to the organization?

  I couldn't do anything about the past. Risky behaviors and errors in judgement were behind me now, however costly. Personally, I just wanted to focus on what was ahead. Since my return from abroad, I'd been following orders and playing nice with everyone. Arson, though, seemed to focus only on my past. To his mind, a Demon-Heart was
an abomination, something that shouldn't exist. If his own mother had been chosen as Gadreel's vessel instead of me, he'd have probably hated the shit out of her, too.

  I was knee-deep in these and other concerns when I noticed someone walking towards the gate at my back. I turned to find a thin, enshrouded form approaching the entrance. Soft footsteps drifted through the air and the temperature seemed to plummet a few degrees.

  My hackles went up at once, and I felt Gadreel getting ready to throw down. This was the guy who'd been watching me earlier as I returned home, the one who'd been lingering in the car lot. But who was he, and how long had he been following me? For that matter, what did he want with me? I braced myself, ready to bust through the gate at the slightest provocation.

  The figure paused a few feet away from me, and through the black bars I could see him more clearly than the last time. Thin, grey hands with jagged, milky nails extended from the sleeves of his black garment. Beneath the hood, I glimpsed not a face, but a white mask. It was a featureless thing the color of chalk, with only two holes for eyes and a gentle slope answering for a nose. I couldn't see anything through those eye-holes.

  Where his eyes should have been, there was only darkness. I won't lie. The sight rattled me a little.

  The figure spoke. “I'm not here for a fight.” He possessed a soft voice. Tired-sounding, eerily calm.

  “Oh? Then what did you come here for?” I asked. “A fight is just about the only thing I've got for a stalker like you. I don't do autographs, so you'd best be on your way.”

  From the inside of the cloak, the figure drew out what appeared to be a sealed letter. He held it out to me from the gate. “A little something for your masters.”

  Eyeing the envelope cautiously, I reached out and took it. “What's this?” By all appearances, it was a plain old letter, but in this world of magic one couldn't be too careful. When the letter didn't immediately burst into flames or transform into a ball of hissing snakes, I relaxed just a bit. “So, who are y--”

  I looked up, but the cloaked figure had vanished.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  13

  I'll admit to being a bit disappointed. There wasn't anything too exciting about the envelope or its contents. There was a simple letter inside, written on the sort of cream-colored stationary you can find plenty of at any old Hallmark store. The cloaked figure hadn't bothered shelling out for primo paper, which is a shame, because letter writing is a dying art. If you're going to get all dramatic and drop off mysterious notes to the members of a secret society, the least you can do is pick out some unique stationary.

  But, I digress.

  The letter read, “HAPPY END OF THE WORLD,” in neat cursive. That was it. The only other detail of interest came on the red, waxen seal on the envelope. It'd been sealed with a curious mark, curved on two sides, and it looked vaguely magical, if that makes any sense. Even though I didn't recognize this particular bit of writing, I'd learned to recognize the language of the craft and could sense a mystical intent surrounding this particular symbol.

  Kubo, Joe, Arson and I took turns studying the thing in silence for a long while that night. It was Germaine, though, who first spoke. “Now what in the hell's that supposed to mean?”

  Kubo tapped the envelope, his pointer finger tracing a circle around the symbol on the seal. “I've seen this before. I know I have.” He racked his brain a moment, held the envelope close to his face, and then nodded. “This is a Maori sigil. It's used in Maori rituals, usually those related to darkness. It's the calling-card of a dark entity called Whiro...” He glanced at Arson, then back to me. “Lucy... what did you say this guy looked like?”

  “He was thin, wore a cloak. And a white mask. Other than that...” I shrugged. “I think he may have been the one following me earlier tonight, near my apartment.”

  Arson snatched the paper from Kubo's grasp and studied it closely, nostrils flared. Without even looking up from it, he growled at me. “What part do you have in this, demon? Enough talk of hooded figures. Out with it. Are you in league with the sender of this message, with the creature seen in town?”

  “Now, hold on,” began Kubo. “I don't think that Lucy here is--”

  It wasn't the smartest move, but I got up in Arson's face, let Gadreel surface so that he could send a demonic gaze straight into the boss's eyes. “I told you already. I don't know who the guy was. If that isn't good enough for you, then that's a personal problem.”

  Much to my surprise, Arson didn't shrink back on account of the demon's stare and instead handed the paper back to Kubo. “We'll see about that.” He smoothed out his bangs and scowled like a rich kid whose allowance was being withheld. I couldn't help but wonder how old he was; he didn't look much older than me, and the pale, glossy character of his skin bespoke a Patrick Bateman-esque skincare routine. He was the kind of pampered wuss who still slept in footie pajamas and had a live-in makeup artist.

  Joe tugged on my arm, pulling me away from Arson before I tried to intimidate him further. “Well, what does the letter mean, guys? Why is this Whiro guy getting ahold of us?” he asked.

  Kubo cleared his throat. “Whiro is an elusive entity, a lesser Lord of Darkness who revels in chaos. I'm not sure that the Veiled Order has ever had to deal with him before. He works mainly in the Beyond, hasn't operated in the world of men for millennia, as far as I know. Nonetheless, there's something troubling about this letter.” He held it out for all of us to see. “The mention of world's end. It may be a clue. If he's the one behind the release of this creature that Ernie first spotted, then perhaps he intends to bring the world to its knees... to usher in the Apocalypse.”

  Germaine whistled. “A monster that can make the world end? Ain't no such thing, last I checked. This ugly mother's got the face of a lion, body of a crocodile, tail of a scorpion--”

  Kubo and Arson exchanged a nervous look as the two of them seemed to arrive at the same notion. “You don't think...” began Arson, “that Whiro has released the Manticore, do you?”

  Kubo gulped, his gaze drifting back to the letter and his brow furrowing. “It could be. I suppose the description is close enough.”

  “The friggin' Manticore?” blurted Germaine. “Gimme me a break. It ain't real.”

  Joe and I were the only ones in the dark about this Manticore, by the looks of it. Whatever it was, it didn't sound too cuddly. “What's the Manticore?” asked Joe.

  Germaine stood up on my shoulder, raising his thin limbs into the air as he sought to explain. “The Manticore is a myth. Mothers in the Beyond tell their kids bedtime stories about it so that they stay in bed, but it ain't a flesh and blood thing. It's an inter-dimensional being, eater of worlds. It's named after the Manticore of ancient Persian mythology. See, it's said to live in the dark space between the world of men and the Beyond. It eats and eats, filling up on the vital forces of living things. And it gains power in doing so. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. Comprende? Until, ya know, it gets big enough to lay waste to the planet. Destroys it.”

  “Shit,” was all I could think to say.

  * * * * *

  Thankfully, we went on to the file room without Arson in tow. He needed to get ahold of the senior council members, let them know what we might have on our hands, and left the rest of us to venture down to the file room to do some reading on the Manticore.

  Joe and I stood near the door while Kubo searched through shelves packed with ancient, leather-bound tomes. Germaine generally got in the way, climbing the shelves and remarking on the rare volumes the Veiled Order had in its collection. “These are worth a fortune. Is that an original Carte de Umbra Lungi you got there? It's makin' my mouth water!”

  Finding the book he was looking for, Kubo made his way to a table. “Yeah, well, these books won't be worth a damn if we're really dealing with the Manticore.”

  The book belched a cloud of dust into the room as soon as Kubo cracked the cover. Flipping through its pages, each of
them filled with the angular scrawl of some long-dead civilization, he paused on one particular section that was fronted by a rudimentary illustration not a little similar to the beast we'd seen that night. It was a medieval-looking illustration, similar to some of the pre-Rennaisance art I'd studied as an undergrad. The thing on the page had the head of a lion, the body of a lizard, a long, hooked tail, an eagle's wings and, to top it all off, was breathing fire. Having happened upon the right section, Kubo didn't seem to know what to do next. “This is Old Persian. I can't read it. Perhaps I can call Amundsen and he can--”

  “Allow me,” said the spider, hopping down onto the table and centering himself before the dusty book. It was easy to forget that Germaine was a learned expert in the field of ancient weapons. He'd owned a bookstore in the Underground packed with old volumes just like this one, and so it shouldn't have come as any surprise that he was highly literate in a number of ancient languages. He worked his way over the page with his spidery arm, grunting as he read. Finally, he gave us his general translation. “Yup, the Manticore is a mythical beast, a being so powerful that it was cast out of the Beyond by the gods in prehistory. Eater of worlds, bringer of ruin. Back in the day, guys like Pliny the Elder and Flavius Philostratus glimpsed it in dream-visions, wrote about it a little. Anyhow, it devours human beings to get stronger and bigger. And then, after a certain point, it lays waste to the planet. 'Consumes' it. Dunno if that's supposed to be literal.”

  I shook my head. “So... once this thing's eaten everyone in Detroit it's just going to take a bite out of the planet Earth like it's a giant Chips Ahoy?”

  The door to the file room opened. A grunt peered inside, waving to Kubo. “S-sorry to disturb you, sir. Something just came along on the police scanner. Two new homicides which authorities believe may be large animal attacks.”

  “Goddammit,” muttered Kubo. “Send some of our guys over. I'm going to call the chief of police myself and make sure that they turn over the bodies to us.” The grunt departed with his orders, and Kubo took to pacing around the file room. “When the Sterlings get here, we'll have a better idea of where we stand.”